


i'll show you how to live for free

by llwydion



Series: a peek into alternate timelines (sw do-overs) [1]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ben "gonna accept my fate" Kenobi, Cody "no one's dying today sir", Cody "saving your fool ass sir", Cody is a badass, Gen, aka "what if Cody was there when Obi-Wan was fighting Vader", as usual, clone being awesome, sacrificing yourself to the sith is a lose-lose situation obi-wan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 12:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13502012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llwydion/pseuds/llwydion
Summary: And Cody won’t let his General go that easily. Not today, not if he could help it, not ever.He’s had enough loss for a lifetime, thank you, and no one was going to die today.So he raises his blaster, and as Vader swings, shoots him in the head with a well-placed blaster bolt.(alternatively, Cody: saving his General for the umpteenth time, once again)





	i'll show you how to live for free

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Kicks" by Barns Courtney

When Ben Kenobi meets Luke Skywalker, he senses something in the Force, something he has not felt in twenty long years. The Force sings around this young man, much like it had around his father, that first time they met on the same planet.

And as he looks at Luke, at how like and yet unlike his father he is, he knows that one day, things will be right again.

This is merely the first step the Force is taking in righting the balance.

(or maybe just another step in a series of steps, one that has led him to tatooine and vader to his darkness and the jedi to their end and qui-gon to his death and xanatos to his fall and

because in the end

it all comes back to this, to life and death and love and grief

because once a boy flew too close to the sun, and his wings of wax melted, and he fell to the darkness below)

* * *

Luke is a promising student. He’s adept at picking up new skills, quick on his feet, and a pleasure to teach. Much like another Padawan of his, once upon a time.

Ben vows that this one will not go the way the last one did. He’s older and wiser (too old and too knowing and too hurt) than he was the first time, twenty-four and grieving and thirty-two and fighting and thirty-eight and dying, along with the shell of his brother he left behind on a planet burning with the Dark and fire. Ben is born of the ashes of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he has learned bitter lessons from his many failures.

He vows that Luke will not be one of them.

 

* * *

Cody knows his General is out there somewhere, alive. He knows this because when Order 66 was executed, he missed, his men missed, and his General escaped. He knows this because when Vader returned (not General Skywalker, never General Skywalker, because General Skywalker had eyes the color of the Tatooine sky and an unflinching will to not follow orders) from Mustafar, he returned without his lightsaber and without his limbs. He returned, pale and near-dead, a shell of his former self, and from that self the Emperor pulled his favorite pieces and stitched together the man known as Vader, his pet wolf.

Vader wears his suit, stands there and breathes as if breathing is a chore, and stares out at the galaxy.

And Cody knows that his General is out there, has survived, and will one day return.

Until then, Cody bides his time within the ranks of identical stormtrooper uniforms hiding blank faces and blanker minds. He watches as his fellow clones age and are replaced by non-identical faces hiding identical minds, clones of a different type, controlled by their own thoughts instead of by implants in their heads. He trains new batches of stormtroopers and hates the whitewashed Mandalorian armor that they wear, symbols of a new regime of terror and violence and brainwashing. White, like their minds. White, like death.

He watches, and he waits. Waits for the time his General would return with a new hope, because he can do nothing else but have faith and wait.

* * *

Ben feels the tractor beam, and some last puzzle piece falls into place. Han and Luke and Leia are panicking, and Chewie is roaring away as usual, but Ben feels oddly at peace. He hasn’t felt this settled since the night of the massacre, since the night he destroyed the man who he thought was his brother.

He knows that today is the day he faces Vader once again, and he knows he will not win.

And he has made his peace.

(because in the end there is no death, there is the force)

* * *

Cody sees his General face down Vader and orders his team to shoot. He takes advantage of the chaos caused by his General’s companions to lay down cover fire, just like in the old days. General Kenobi has a faint smile on his face.

Vader readies himself for another clash. General Kenobi holds up his ‘saber in a gesture that Cody was all too familiar with, a gesture that he saw repeated, over and over, the night of the massacre.

And Cody won’t let his General go that easily. Not today, not if he could help it, not ever.

He’s had enough loss for a lifetime, thank you, and no one was going to die today.

So he raises his blaster, and as Vader swings, shoots him in the head with a well-placed blaster bolt.

* * *

Luke stares open-mouthed at the trooper who just shot Vader in the head, then back to Vader, who clapped a hand over the shattered dent in his helmet. The terrible mask turns in their general direction.

“Come on, Ben! We need to go!”

Ben nods once, then turns and runs. Vader watches them go. They pile onto the gangway, Ben having snagged the stormtrooper who fired the shot.

“Go, go, go!” Han shouted.

And they were safely in hyperspace.

* * *

Cody stares at his General. Twenty years, and his General had grown old and pained. His General stares back.

Eventually, Luke breaks the silence.

“Sorry, but who are you?”

Cody swallows, then reaches for the latch of his helmet.

“General Kenobi, sir, it is good to see you again.”

Luke’s eyes (and they are so much like General Skywalker’s that he _knows_ ) open wide as General Kenobi pulls him in for a hug.

“It’s good to see you too, Cody.”

And the Force sings a song of resilience and suffering, of eagerness and fortitude, of love and life and patience. Things thought lost with the fall of the Jedi Order, things thought disappeared with the Republic, vanishing like smoke into the darkness of the Empire.

And for once, the Force sings of hope.

**Author's Note:**

> cody and obi-wan go to the rebel alliance.   
> obi-wan trains luke. there is a lot of throwing of rocks. luke can now do a handstand on one hand while flipping his master off with his other.  
> cody becomes the weapons master and scares the sh*t out of the shinies with his crack shooting. they're also super impressed, because no one's gotten a hit on vader in years, especially not a former stormtrooper-turned-rebel.
> 
> somewhere on dagobah, yoda cackles and waits for the return of the jedi.


End file.
